


Just A Bit Longer And Then We'll Tell The World

by Ladderofyears



Series: Fictober 2019 [17]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angsty Draco, Boys In Love, Coming Out, Deals with Difficulties Coming Out, Frustration, Homophobia, Homophobic Society, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Waiting, little bit sad, please be careful reading, some homophobic slurs used
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 02:36:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21067391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladderofyears/pseuds/Ladderofyears
Summary: Draco and Harry are in a secret relationship, conducted behind closed doors and during illicit dates to muggle London. Draco would love Harry to come out to their friends, family and community but Harry simply isn't ready to take that step.





	Just A Bit Longer And Then We'll Tell The World

**Author's Note:**

> It was National Coming Out Day here in the UK on the eleventh of October and my media was flooded with happy, positive stories and photographs. It was tinged with sadness though, because for many people coming out isn't an easy journey. A person might not have a supportive family, or might live in a society where an open LGBTQIA life isn't as acceptable. Maybe, like Harry, they are simply not ready to deal with other people's changed perceptions of them. 
> 
> Draco, while he does get frustrated and annoyed about the situation, loves Harry enough to let him make his own journey.
> 
> This is my seventeenth fictober story, and is based on the prompt:_Patience is not something I'm known for._

Harry and he have fought again, and Draco hated it. It’s probably the third or fourth time this week that they’ve had this same aggravating discussion with the pair of the them going over the same boring ground. _Merlin_. Draco knew he was being played for a complete bloody fool. 

If he didn’t love Potter so much, he’d be heading straight for the door and never once looking back. What was that delightfully dreadful muggle saying that Pans had used only yesterday? _Piss or get off the pot?_ So very coarse, but then again, so very true. 

Pansy had told him to ‘leave, or stop bloody moaning,’ but Draco wasn’t about to do either. The truth was Draco had been well aware of Harry’s terms from the very beginning of their relationship. “I’m the Lead Auror, Draco. The Ministry _Goldenboy_. If I came out as gay the whole Wizarding world is bound to think I’ve been lying to them for years. Wizarding England is hidebound. Conservative. Everything that I’ve worked for since I was seven-_fucking_-teen could be ruined with one little sentence.”

In truth, Draco had known that he’d be Potter’s dirty Dark-Marked secret from their first illicit shag. Potter’s awkward secret that’s perfect for sharing long lazy mornings beneath the covers with, but rather less perfect for taking to restaurants or Ministry Balls. If any other man had offered Draco such unwieldy terms, they’d have felt the sharp end of his wand but Harry was different. Draco had _fallen_ for the glittering git, fallen hard. All of that childhood antagonism stripped of the hate had made loving Potter easy. 

Draco needed Potter: it was as simple and complicated as that. 

Draco needed Potter like the magic that coursed through his body and the blood that pumped through his veins. Needed Potter like the heartbeat that raced and skipped whenever they kissed. _Magic, blood and Draco’s racing heart_. That was their whole relationship in a microcosm. When Harry and he lay together beneath the sheets, a tangle of sweat-damp limbs, their bodies warm and sticky Draco didn’t feel like a secret. He didn’t feel like a source of shame. He felt glorious; felt beautiful and divine. No other experience- and no other man- had ever come close to Potter. It made every minute of their clandestine love affair worth it. 

Sometimes Harry and he would visit muggle London, holding hands as they wandered around the shops. Draco had a picture of them both that they’d taken in a muggle photo-booth. It was the oddest thing, Draco had thought, charming the photo to his bedroom wall. So still and lifeless. A tiny moment, frozen forever in time. Harry had laughed that day, dragging him into the booth and pulling Draco down into his lap. His rough stubbly cheek had grazed Draco’s own, and as the camera had flashed the two men had kissed passionately. 

“You’re magnificent,” Harry had whispered, warm breath tickling his ear. “I’m addicted to you Draco. I can’t get enough of you.”

It was the most public that Harry ever been with his affections and Draco had hoped against hope that it might be a turning point in their relationship. It hadn’t been though. He’d noticed how Harry had surreptitiously scanned the area for magical folk when they left the booth. Later he’d noticed how Harry had dropped his hand as they approached Diagon Alley, stepping a subtle footstep further apart. Draco tried not complain, but patience wasn’t something he was generally known for. 

Draco hated reading about Harry’s pretend-girlfriends each day in the _Prophet_. Potter only needed to speak to a witch for the two to be linked romantically. The journos favourite was Ginny-bloody-Weasley. Whenever the pair were pictured the tabloids would turn giddy with excitement. Harry and Ginny was the royal wedding the Wizarding world still held their breathe for, even though the two had been been split for years. Even her entanglement with Oliver Wood hadn’t dampened the _Prophet’s_ Hinny fervour. 

Draco hated watching Harry from the sidelines. Hated when their dates got broken for Auror fieldwork missions that Potter had no way to tell him about privately. Hated when Harry attended glitzy Balls for his charity with a glamorous young Quidditch star on his arm. Draco wanted to be the one sharing Harry’s life, wanted the media _Lumos_ gazing down on him too. He wanted to share in Harry’s good times. Looking on from a distance wasn’t nearly as much fun. 

Draco had been out of his closet since he was eighteen. A string of boyfriends had scandalised Wizarding England and he’d made sure to flout his lovers in the most stuffy of his Father’s soriees and parties. Traditionalists had been shocked by his behaviour but Draco hadn’t cared one Sickle. The Mark on his arm had already ruined him forever in the circles of polite society so Draco had set out to offend and outrage wherever and whenever he’d felt rejected. (Honestly, Draco half-wished he’d been a little more discreet. Perhaps Potter wouldn’t have been so uncomfortable about their love affair if he had been.)

And there wasn’t a point to pulling Harry to task about his internalised homophobia, not really. They’ve been there and done that, and Draco already knew all of Harry’s answers. 

In a terrible irony, the bravest Gryffindor that ever lived was afraid. 

Potter dressed it up as precaution and care but Draco thought he knew the truth. Inside, Harry was still that same scruffy orphan he’d been aged eleven, looking to the world for the love and adoration that he craved so desperately. He was still looking for that unconditional love that the world had seemed to deny him. Harry so feared living his truth, feared living a life where he was free to be himself. Harry’s truth was high-risk and dangerous. He was panic-struck at the thought of no longer being their _Saviour_. 

The pair of them had talked in circles about the subject of Harry coming-out, and Draco understood Harry’s worries. He truly did. With Lucius for a Father Draco had heard every homophobic slur. Each word had cut him deep, but what had really made him bleed was the guilt that Father had poured into his ear. _‘A tragic waste of Pure-Blood purity,_’ had been Father’s words. _‘A deviant. Not fit to carry the Malfoy name.’_

Draco could only imagine the vitriol that the Wizarding community would pour on Harry. Still just a child when he’d saved them all, Harry was the pseudo-son of every wizard in the world. Draco had only borne the brunt of one man’s disappointment but Harry would have to face the broken dreams of a nation. Draco appreciated that coming-out wouldn’t ever be easy for Harry. 

_Pride_ was a heavy weight for his lover to lift but Draco was sure that it’d get lighter with every step that Harry took. Draco always told Harry that nothing valuable ever came easily but his beloved wasn’t there. Not yet. Harry wasn’t ready to live his truth. After all, Harry couldn’t be forced into coming-out: that, Draco knew that. Forcing him would only make him as vile as the tabloids he despised. Pride had to be Harry’s personal journey, something he had to make peace with for himself. 

But even though Draco understood, he still struggled to accept their situation. 

“I just want to sit beside you at Ministry dinners,” Draco had moaned, watching from the bed as his lover charmed his jacket straight and attempted to style his hair. Harry didn’t like it when he whined like this but disappointment always had the effect of loosening his tongue. “Walk down Diagon holding your bloody _hand_. Pans and Theo are having an engagement party at the weekend, and I’d like to take you with me. Wear matching-bloody-robes and make people sickeningly jealous.”

“You’d like all that?” Harry replied, looking at Draco with those inscrutable green eyes. “Identical wedding rings and curtain shopping at the weekend? I’d have thought the famous Draco Malfoy would have got off on a bit of subterfuge.”

“Subterfuge gets tedious,” Draco said, standing and walking idly over to Harry. “Do hold still, Potter. Your tie isn’t straight. Much like yourself.”

Harry laughed, angling his head so that Draco could fix his tie. He slipped his hands around Draco’s waist and pressed kisses all over Draco’s hair. Draco didn’t want to look at Harry’s face, knowing that his boyfriends expression would be contrite and apologetic. 

Draco didn’t want to hear Harry’s excuses, or his well developed reasoning. Draco wanted to sit beside Harry during the Potter Charity Ball. Share a dessert before slow dancing into the small morning hours… 

“It won’t be like this forever,” Harry said, reading Draco’s thoughts as easily as if he had said them aloud. “I think about it too, Draco. _I do._ All the time. I think about telling the _Prophet_ our story. I think about telling Ron and Hermione about us… How pleased they’d be to see me finally happy. I have this fantasy of siting outside Fortescues, drinking coffees. Just watching the world go by. The whole of magical London would know about us, but not one person would give a fig.”

Draco sighed sadly, feeling all the frustration and annoyance leave his body. 

“None of that _has_ to be a fantasy, Harry,” Draco replied, burying his head into Harry’s shoulders. His lover felt wonderful beside him; solid and present. “If you could only tell the truth about us, then that could be our existence. _Our truth_. Granted, it’d be hard at first but people would move on quick enough. They’d soon have another controversy to shake their heads at. The Ministry Christmas Ball. That’s still three months away! We could tell the world then, go together. I could-”

“Not then,” Harry interrupted, hurriedly moving outside of Draco’s arm. He looked wretched, and Draco watched in the mirror as Harry took off his glasses and rubbed at his temples with his fingertips. “You know that’s the biggest date in the charitable calender, love. People get drunk and Galleons just _spill_ from their Vaults. I couldn’t do it to my charity, Draco. It wouldn’t be fair. Look, it won’t be like this forever. You know that. I… I just need a _bit_ longer. I don’t have the same freedoms as you-” Harry replaced his glasses, staring at Draco’s reflection. 

_Excuses_, Draco thought, and he knew that Harry could hear the word as clear as day. 

Harry’s excuses were depriving the pair of them from the life they both deserved to be living, the life that Harry had earnt for himself with his bravery and service. Their love might not be the heterosexual storybook ending that his public so craved but it was their truth. It deserved to be accepted as such. _Theirs_ was a love story too, Draco thought, a triumph of change, acceptance and forgiveness. Every single day was another wasted chance. 

Another day where they couldn’t hold hands, dance or kiss with the world’s eyes upon them. 

Draco knew that there was more than one type of bravery. Harry was the quintessential Gryffindor, unafraid to take on dragons, trolls and Dark Lords alike. Taking on his own legend though? Showing the world that he was more that just their hero? Perhaps that was a courage that Harry just wasn’t ready for. 

But Draco would wait though. Draco would wait for Harry forever, however sad that made him feel, because that was how much he loved him. 

“Just a little bit longer,” Harry repeated, his eyes desperately searching Draco’s own. “And then we’ll tell the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading xxxx


End file.
